We're NOT tuning cars! We are not tuning orchestras! A lot of things these days can use a "tuneup." We amplify and harmonize voices that need to be heard.

Category Archives: Super Bowl XLVIII

Inside the mind the wheels are turning………….

Why can’t we all just get along? I’ve allowed myself to wait to finish this posting a few weeks in order to mull over the ‘subject’ of the message here. To hope and believe that everybody needs to think the same in order to cooperate and prosper is a ridiculous premise. I mean – The opposite opinion is not necessarily a total disagreement. Somewhere in the middle there are similarities and shared ideals on some things. It is not all black and white. Hope allows us to think that eventually we’ll somehow all get along. Agreement. Peace.

Keeping along those thought lines – in a market driven economy like we have in the USA – there is the desire to attract the largest body of support (the able purchasers) and to supply a fair and attractive image to a product or ideal or concept or platform that will carry the majority to some form of agreement on an issue. Would you divorce your spouse because he/she preferred Coca-Cola over Pepsi?

There have been some articles written1 about the ‘levels of intelligence’ and associated political and social attitudes (or leanings) in what appear to be scholarly journals and the remarkable thing is that the one side who likes to think “Red” also generally rebukes Coca-Cola and their recent advertising Super Blunder in the Super Bowl advertising commercials. But what happened? In one expensive halftime commercial Coca-Cola did not incubate diversity as some have opined – they actually created extended polarization by making an unsustainable point. That statement alone will provoke argument from the pseudo-intelligencia on one bank of the aisle.But seriously – to forge an American English lyric and a melody word-for-word into another language does not represent true cohabitation between cultures. It is fake. It is pretentious. It only makes sense to ONE body of viewers and that body is – you guessed it – Mr. & Mrs. Joe America. Congratulations – you set yourself aside from nearly 80% of the world population and accomplished nothing but warm some advertising wallets and fannies. It failed miserably. The message came out wrong and it did not promote a popular concept or ideal. Just the opposite.

However…………

Did you know the largest two competing International brands cooperated In a very popular drink concoction in the 50’s? After World War II there were some political issues that prevented the unbridled distribution of Coke in the former Nazi Germany and the Coca-Cola company turned to making an orange drink to maintain their presence in the beverage market. What developed was a compromise – Pepsi was not a replacement for the cola – the local pubs (kneipen) developed a very popular ‘alcohol free’ drink (the original zero beer) called a “Spezi” (pronouncedc Speight-Zee) which was a blend of the Pepsi and the new Coca-Cola product called Fanta.

Then the popularity with the Germans cultivated an actual “brand” and the rest is history.

During the Super Bowl: Jerry Seinfeld and his former co-star Jason Alexander (George Costanza) were featured in a vignette bickering in their old coffee shop in New York. Turns out it was a promotion for a six-minute episode of Crackle’s hit Comedians in Cars featuring Jerry and George taking a drive, in character.

UPDATE

The whole promo was just that – a promo. The stunt was as much about promoting a stunt as the stunt itself. Enjoy!

There is always the Puppy Bowl if you don’t care to watch the most viewed television spectacle in the world. This year marks the 10th Edition of The Puppy Bowl which airs on Animal Planet this Sunday at 3pm EST. They are several times more fun to watch than cats, who are pretty much self-centered snots.